1. Field
The present disclosure relates to a system and method for enhancing user interface features associated with distributed digital content.
2. Description of the Related Art
Motion picture feature films and similar audio-visual digital content is often distributed as a package of digital content formatted for play by a specialized player according to a specific standard. For example, movies, television episodes, and similar content are often encoded as digital data on optical media such as HD DVD or Blu-ray discs, and distributed in distributed in packages of one or more discs. Each digital content package may consist of a specific set of binary files formatted according to an applicable audio or video codec, representing various parts of an interlinked media presentation when played by the appropriate media player. For example, one file may be played to present a feature film, while other files are played to present various menus and special features on a consumer display device, such as a video monitor. All of the files are characteristically configured to be playable using a media player compliant with a specific standard, which specifies various video or audio codecs, for example, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 AVC, SMTPE-VC1, Linear PCM, and Dolby Digital. Supported codecs require limitations on the digital content that is to be played, and data or executable files that do not comply with a supported codec cannot generally be played using a standard media player. The HD DVD standard is no longer supported, and applications written for HD DVD may need to be migrated to Blu-ray for future distribution. Information concerning the HD DVD standard is available from the DVD Forum at www.dvdforum.org. Information concerning the Blu-ray standard is available from the Blu-Ray Disc Association at www.blu-raydisc.com. Unlike the DVD standard, the HD DVD and Blu-ray standard include built-in support for network connectivity.
Digital content packages formatted to specific Blu-ray or equivalent standards are usually provided on a physical media, such as an optical disc. These standards were specifically developed for optical media, and are designed to provide a specified data density for media compliant with the applicable standard, among other things. Digital files encoded on media compliant with these standards, in turn, must comply with published video or audio codecs specified by the applicable standard. While physical media is usually employed, a digital content package consisting of files that comply with all requirements of a particular standard need not be encoded on an optical disc. Such a digital content package may be streamed via a wide area network, wirelessly broadcast, and/or stored on a variety of different computer memories, while retaining all the characteristics of a compliant content package, including consistent adherence to specific audio-video codecs for encoding of audio-video data, and strict avoidance of executable or other data not compliant with the applicable standard. Such characteristics make the compliant digital content package suitable for use by any compliant media player to provide audio-video output.
The personal home viewing of a motion picture or other thematically coherent audio-video work is, for some users, not merely a passive entertainment experience. Some users desire to interact with the audio-video work in more critical and creative ways to produce derivative works that, while limited in scope, reflect their own personal tastes and creative abilities. For example, this phenomenon can be seen at work at Internet sites such as hosted by YouTube and others, wherein users borrow freely from copyrighted content in audio-video works to create and publish new but derivative audio-video works. Presently distributed digital content packages do not provide tools for allowing any type of derivative work creation within the scope of an accompanying license. As a result, many if not most amateur derivative works based on published digital content packages for audio-video works are produced using inconvenient external computer and editing tools in violation of license terms, are often of poor quality, and may sometimes be harmful to the interests of the copyright holder. It would be desirable, therefore, to provide systems and methods that enable creation and publication of derivative works based on published audio-video works while avoiding the problems and limitations of the prior art.